What's next for Walmart's employer-provided health benefits

Where it stands: Walmart contracts directly with a small group of high-quality systems — including Geisinger and the Mayo Clinic — and pays employees’ travel costs, in addition to their medical costs, if they'll get certain procedures at those preferred facilities.

What's new: Walmart is adding more providers to that small network, and is also testing out a sort of health care concierge for its workers. 

• The company will test a program featuring local providers in Central Florida and Dallas. The providers will still be selected based on Walmart's quality metrics.
• It will steer employees to those doctors for 8 specialties: primary care, cardiology, gastroenterology, endocrinology, obstetrics, oncology, orthopedics and pulmonology.
• Walmart is also piloting a concierge service to help employees navigate "billing and appointments, but also finding a quality provider, understanding a diagnosis and addressing other complex questions," the company said in a release.
• That program will roll out in the Carolinas.

Thought bubble: Walmart's effort to seek out and favor high-quality providers, even when it comes at a near-term cost, is a stark contrast to the penny-pinching and cost-shifting that define so much of the employer market.